"This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S"
About this Quote
The subtext is a quiet assertion of institutional parity. When he notes an earlier instance where the EU said yes and the U.S. said no, Monti is pre-empting the familiar narrative that Europe is the obstructionist and America the market-friendly grown-up. He’s reminding listeners that regulatory disagreement is symmetrical, and that neither side has a monopoly on “sound economics.” It’s also a subtle message to dealmakers: don’t treat Brussels as a stamp you collect on the way to Washington, or vice versa.
Context matters: cross-border mergers in the 2000s were becoming stress tests for globalization itself, forcing regulators to answer a political question in technical clothing: who gets to set the rules for corporate scale? Monti’s clipped comparison keeps the argument on procedural terrain while signaling something more consequential - that in an integrated economy, power still stops at borders, and the map is drawn by antitrust lawyers as much as by diplomats.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Monti, Mario. (2026, January 17). This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-certainly-not-the-first-case-in-which-a-79557/
Chicago Style
Monti, Mario. "This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-certainly-not-the-first-case-in-which-a-79557/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-certainly-not-the-first-case-in-which-a-79557/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.
